[-empyre-] December´s Opening Statement

[marcus bastos <bastos.marcus@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Raquel´s opening statement was filtered, I´m FWDing it. I´ll take the
opportunity to remind all guests and subscribers that - empyre - only
accept PLAIN TEXT messages and ask everyone to please check the format
of their posts to avoid further problems. This is specially important
regarding archiving issues. FWDing a message means making it more
difficult to search by author at the list´s archives.

best,
marcus.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "raquel renno" <raquel@influenza.etc.br>
To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 02:28:28 +0100
Subject: art and cognition- empyre december


Art and cognition- empyre december



There are many approaches to the art and cognition theme that we hope
that will take place according to the different points-of-view of the
guests (Luigi Pagliarini, David Cuartielles,Andy Gracie and Raquel
Paricio) and empyre members. The approach initially proposed here
refers to a searching for new ways of representation and creation in
digital technologies. It is important to leave the real (science) vs
imaginary (art) dichotomy for another one that provides for art and
cognitives sciences as a whole. Understanding the relation between art
and cognition does not take place by means of dichotomies, but by
means of elements in a state of constant tension of a kind which does
not tend towards the equilibrium. Sometimes, it's a question of
finding a generative model more than the appearance of the thing. This
is valid in the translation of physical phenomena as well as in the
realm of the symbolic.

The work developed by Louis Bec during the last decades is one of the
important contributions in this discussion. His project Arapuca,
explores the potentialities of water as a way to transmit information.
Some electric impulses from a electric fish are captured, digitalized
and transformed in database that are reinterpreted by a Puredata
programming that creates sound and image, receiving, information from
a user. This' a back and forth system relating fish/machine/man.
Another part of the project connects two electric fish of different
families to communicate from the digitalisation of the data.
Upokrinomenologic Aberrations, on the other hand, explore the creation
of imaginary living creatures, through the distortion of some laws of
the medium where a "real" animal lives:



"The Upokrinomenologic Aberrations project finds its process through
an alternative to the Artificial Life. Until now, several researches
have been trying to reproduce artificial conditions of life, which
resemble it, through the modelling of cellular automatons, genetic
algorithms, collective intelligence, dynamic morphogenesis, robotic,
without nevertheless being able to escape the biomimetic conditions of
the earthbound surrounding.

Beginning with the inherent laws of a defined reality, it becomes
possible to model non trivial situations, in which the multiple
activities of the living can develop according to twisted parameters,
over the frequent adaptive and co-adaptive situations. Factors like
gravity, pressure, temperature, humidity, viscosity, density,
luminance... by modulating, crossing, interconnecting, twisting their
parameters, can become operators producing deciding consequences on
the morphogenesis, the behaviors, the technozoosemiotic modes of
communication.

Then a non-cooperative modelling of virtual environments and universes
can generate a strategy to avoid the constraints of the ordinary and
introduce new artistic dimensions.." (Bec 2002: unnumbered)



On the contrary, in Arapuca the element of chance has been included by
random sequencing in an effort to integrate causality in the ordered
structure of the work. It is known that there are rules in how living
creatures organize themselves, but rules, which Peirce called
"evolutionary", not defined a priori, as a rationalized variety. Still
quoting Bec:



"While there is every possibility that the cognitive sciences can come
up with new interpretations of the mechanics of creativity, it is
equally true that they can no longer ignore the extent to which
artistic advances are penetrating and transforming them via an input
that is no less important on the theoretical than on the practical
level. Conversely artistic practise, in its representation or
interpretation of the perceived world, cannot expect to escape the
influence of the cognitive sciences, especially if it is art is
considered as a means to knowledge; especially if it is considered as
capable of imparting form to matter in all possible contexts; and
especially if the artistic enterprise is considered as a conscious
exploration of the now and why of creativity, the how and why of those
symbolic representations through which the making of all artefacts
must pass. See thus the cognitive sciences cease to be merely
explicative and become a  creative well-spring, a take-off point for
the imagination" (Art Cognition, Pratiques artistiques et sciences
cognitives, Aix-en Provence: Cyprès/Ecole d'art d'Aix en Provence,
1994 p.20-21).



It is not a question of assessing referential or non-referential
pieces using value judgments where the referential is "bad" because it
deceives and the non-referential is "good" because it is a liberating
truth. In fact, it is a matter here of putting in question unilateral
approaches for constructing digital art works which would merely offer
one single channel for the perception of how human/machine relate and
discuss if art and cognition can propose alternatives for this vision.